Irish wind turbines - David de la Iglesia Villar, marked CC License.
Irish wind turbines – David de la Iglesia Villar, marked CC License.
The Emerald Isle is greener than its reputation holds, as it turns out, since more than half of electricity on some days is generated by renewable energy.
Though it’s common to have all four seasons in a single day in Ireland, one can pretty much bet on the wind, which generated an all-time high for contribution to the Irish power grid with 4.62 gigawatts on Wednesday last week.
By midnight, 71% of all the day’s electricity needs were met with wind power.
In 2022, HeatMap reports that Ireland was third in the world for energy generated from wind. The Green Collective, which provides insights into the Irish energy grid, reports that the previous record was around 4.56, and was generated last year.
Wind generation has been falling since about 6pm so we're calling it: the new all-time, all-island high for wind output on the Irish grid is 4629MW, seen at 4pm this afternoon 🥳
Wind generation so far today equivalent to 73% of electricity demand - full report tomorrow!
Wind energy is a big industry for the gusty nations of Northern Europe like Denmark, Norway, Lithuania, and Ireland, but is also highly developed in Uruguay, which is the second-highest producer of wind energy.
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Quote of the Day: “Please, do poetical justice to your soul.” – Albert Camus
Photo by: Joel Olives, CC license (cropped)
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A new and creative study shows that rejecting undesired invitations to parties can be beneficial in avoiding holiday burnout.
The study also found that even if the invitation comes from loved ones, they don’t care about rejections as much as we imagine they do.
More than three-quarters of people in a survey confessed to accepting an invitation to an activity they did not want to attend because they were concerned about the consequences of declining.
This is supposedly even more prominent over the Christmas season when invitations are typically higher.
“I was once invited to an event that I absolutely did not want to attend, but I attended anyways because I was nervous that the person who invited me would be upset if I did not – and that appears to be a common experience,” said Dr. Julian Givi from the American Psychological Association.
“Our research shows, however, that the negative ramifications of saying no are much less severe than we expect.”
To get their results the team from the APA conducted five experiments with more than 2,000 participants.
In one experiment, the researchers asked participants to read a scenario where they either invited friends, or were invited by one of their friends, to dinner on a Saturday night at a local restaurant with a celebrity chef.
The participants who were given the invitation were told to imagine they declined because they already had plans during the day and wanted to spend a night at home relaxing.
The participants who imagined giving the invitation were told their friend declined for the same reason.
The researchers found that participants who imagined turning down their friend’s invitation often believed it would immediately have negative ramifications for their relationship.
These participants were much more likely to say their friend would feel angry, disappointed, and unlikely to invite them to attend future events than the rejected group rated themselves.
“Across our experiments, we consistently found that invitees overestimate the negative ramifications that arise in the eyes of inviters following an invitation decline,” said Dr. Givi.
“People tend to exaggerate the degree to which the person who issued the invitation will focus on the act of the invitee declining the invitation as opposed to the thoughts that passed through their head before they declined.”
In another experiment, the researchers recruited 160 people to participate in what was called a couple’s survey with their significant other.
In this experiment, 74% of the couples had been together for more than five years. One member of the couple had to write an invitation, and the other had to reject it so they could relax.
The person who rejected their partner’s invitation to a fun activity tended to believe that their partner would be angrier or more likely to feel as if the rejection meant they did not care about their partner as much as they actually did.
The researchers believe their findings, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, show people consistently overestimate how upset someone will be when they decline an invitation, even if they have a longstanding, close relationship.
“While there have been times when I have felt a little upset with someone who declined an invitation, our research gives us quite a bit of good reason to predict people overestimate the negative ramifications for our relationships,” Dr. Givi said.
“Burnout is a real thing, especially around the holidays when we are often invited to too many events. Don’t be afraid to turn down invitations here and there. But keep in mind that spending time with others is how relationships develop, so don’t decline every invitation.”
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In a creative use of the justice system of English Common Law, a woman in Ohio was sentenced to two months’ work at a fast food restaurant after she was recorded throwing hot food in the face of a Chipotle worker.
Reminiscent of the Seinfeld episode where Jerry and George come up with the pilot for a TV show about a man sentenced to be George’s butler for a year, the woman was asked if she preferred jail time or to walk in her victim’s shoes.
According to the woman’s attorney, the offender pleaded guilty in the court of the Hon. Timothy Gilligan to a misdemeanor assault charge, and was given either the choice of 90 day’s jail time or 30 days with 60 days of mandatory service as a fast food worker, in addition to a $250 fine.
A statement provided to the court by the woman’s attorney read that she was “truly sorry for what happened that day.”
“I was thinking,” Judge Gilligan told CNN, ‘What else can I do rather than just have her sit in jail.’”
“I don’t see her as any greater risk than anyone who walks in off the street,” he said, pondering whether her reputation would make it impossible to get a job at a restaurant. “I looked at it as someone who lost her cool.”
“She’s going to learn to work in fast food, and hopefully it will be good,” said the Chipotle worker who was assaulted.
Judge Gilligan hopes for the same, pointing out that it could hardly be otherwise when considering the quality difference between jail food and even a poorly prepared burrito bowl.
GNN has reported on judges giving instructive sentences before to the benefit of the perpetrator and society at large. Judge Barnette in Hennepin County, PA, gave the “benefit of the doubt” to a serial, non-violent drug abuser because she had managed to get into law school.
That drug abuser, Sarah Gad, became a criminal defense attorney and even managed to win a case defending a client in Judge Barnette’s court years later.
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A California dog walker had the opportunity to adopt a disabled chicken, and social media loved him so much they’ve sent over 60 pairs of tiny shoes and boots.
The Malaysian Serama breed chicken lost his toes to leg scale mites, a debilitating arachnoid parasite. New owner Meech Davignon of Escondido California had to suffocate them using vaseline and cotton wool which she had to change three times a day.
Nursing him back to health, she began affectionately calling him “Nubz” after the short ends of his toes.
But this loving attention won her a most charismatic chicken, who “rules the roost” among her dogs, cats, guinea pigs, and 11 other chickens, even though he hobbled around.
Davignon realized he had trouble moving on hard surfaces, and remembered she had a pair of tiny dog slippers that her smallest pooch never used. She thought they might help Nubz.
“As he got more comfortable wearing his little shoes, I’d leave them on longer each time,” Davignon told the Washington Post. “Pretty soon, he was getting around a lot better than he did without them because they were great little mobility devices. I’d let him wear them to walk on wood chips and anything else that was rough on his feet.”
Last January, the odd couple celebrated 1 year of companionship, and Davignon celebrated by making a TikTok account for Nubz with videos of him walking about in his little slippers. It created a viral firestorm of interest in the chicken, with commenters asking if it would be okay to send Nubz more shoes.
Because it deserves more attention, just look at his little strut 😭🥰❤️ This little dude has improved so much!!! Help us share his awesomeness! Please like, comment, share, interact... we are trying to raise money for a sanctuary and every view helps us ❤️❤️❤️
“They’ve been a great blessing—it’s surreal to have so many people love my tiny little chicken,” said Davignon.
The packages began arriving by the dozen, and soon Nubz could pick between Sunday shoes, blue suede shoes, dinosaur claw boots, plush booties, sandals, and more.
She keeps them all in a dresser in her room, and every time a new pair comes in the mail she posts a video on TikTok of the chicken strutting his stuff. Davignon said his favorite pair are some dark blue boots that look somewhat like Ugs. He can move about faster than normal in them.
Currently, the 3-year-old bird is in physical rehab for a pair of degenerative disks in his neck, which she was able to treat with—get this—avian acupuncture, with the help of her TikTok followers.
Currently in a little wheelchair, she is sure he will be back to his plucky self before long.
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MAAP shows over 50% improvement in forest loss in Brazil over the last year – MAAProject.org
MAAP shows over 50% improvement in forest loss in Brazil over the last year – MAAProject.org
Deforestation across the Amazon Rainforest has fallen by 55% this year, marking the lowest amounts since 2019, and somewhat of a major victory to recently-elected leftist governments in Brazil and Colombia.
The data was provided to Reuters via the Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project, which tracks forest cover and loss across all the nations of the Amazon using the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-2 satellite.
The data showed a 59% drop in primary forest loss in Brazil, which promisingly runs very close to the numbers provided by Brazil’s government under Luiz Ignacio de Silva, who ran on a part-environmental platform.
Bolivia also saw a drop in the rate of forest loss by 60% despite battling several severe wildfires.
Among countries that experienced increased rates of forest loss, (Venezuela, Suriname, and Guyana) MAAP says this is down to natural causes like floods, mudslides, and strong winds.
Some scientists believe that the Amazon Rainforest’s capacity to absorb carbon dioxide is the Earth’s greatest tool to prevent climate change. Some rainforests, such as those in Costa Rica are theorized as being net-carbon sources rather than sinks because of the poor soil and rapid decomposition of biomass, but the Amazon hasn’t been studied in this way.
MAAP believes the deforestation data will allow the Amazonian countries to have a strong negotiating position for international conservation funding at the upcoming summit for the signatures of the Paris Agreement, or COP28.
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Quote of the Day: “The most worthwhile thing is trying to put happiness into the lives of others.” – Robert Baden-Powell
Photo by: Kostiantyn Li
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Glasses on, Peter Park has a superpower, but it isn’t spinning webs and catching thieves just like flies, it’s a brilliant brain that has seen him become the youngest attorney in California’s history.
In a legal history-making moment, the Korean American currently working at the Tulare County District Attorney’s office as a law clerk passed the rigorous California bar exam on his first attempt, making him the youngest person to ever pass the exam at age 17.
At the age of 13, in 2019, Park began high school at Oxford Academy in Cypress, CA. Simultaneously, Park enrolled in a four-year juris doctor program at Northwestern California University School of Law utilizing a state bar rule that allows students to apply to law school through the completion of College Level Proficiency Exams (CLEPS).
After graduating high school in 2021 Park focused on law school and graduated in 2023.
“It was not easy, but it was worth it. It required discipline and strategy to pass the Bar, and I made it in the end. I am extremely blessed to have discovered this path, and my hope is that more people will realize that alternative paths exist to becoming an attorney,” Park said.
“I aspire to become a prosecutor because I am driven by a moral obligation to uphold liberty, equality, and justice in society. I admire how prosecutors keep our community safe and bring closure to victims.”
California is considered the nation’s toughest bar exam along with Delaware. Half of all attempts fail.
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The Biden Administration last week announced it would be seizing patents for drugs and drug manufacturing procedures developed using government money.
A draft of the new law, seen by Reuters, said that the government will consider various factors including whether a medical situation is leading to increased prices of the drug at any given time, or whether only a small section of Americans can afford it.
The new executive order is the first exercise in what is called “march-in-rights” which allows relevant government agencies to redistribute patents if they were generated under government funding. The NIH has long maintained march-in-rights, but previous directors have been unwilling to use them, fearing consequences.
“We’ll make it clear that when drug companies won’t sell taxpayer funded drugs at reasonable prices, we will be prepared to allow other companies to provide those drugs for less,” White House adviser Lael Brainard said on a press call.
But just how much taxpayer money is going toward funding drugs? A research paper from the Insitute for New Economic Thought showed that “NIH funding contributed to research associated with every new drug approved from 2010-2019, totaling $230 billion.”
The authors of the paper continue, writing “NIH funding also produced 22 thousand patents, which provided marketing exclusivity for 27 (8.6%) of the drugs approved [between] 2010-2019.”
How we do drug discovery and production in America has a number of fundamental flaws that have created problems in the health service industry.
It costs billions of dollars and sometimes as many as 5 to 10 years to bring a drug to market in the US, which means that only companies with massive financial muscle can do so with any regularity, and that smaller, more innovative companies can’t compete with these pharma giants.
This also means that if a company can’t recoup that loss, a single failed drug can result in massive disruptions to business. To protect themselves, pharmaceutical companies establish piles of patents on drugs and drug manufacturing procedures. Especially if the drug in question treats a rare or obscure disease, these patents essentially ensure the company has monoselective pricing regimes.
However, if a company can convince the NIH that a particular drug should be considered a public health priority, they can be almost entirely funded by the government, as the research paper showed.
Some market participants, in this case the famous billionaire investor Mark Cuban, have attempted to remedy the issue of drug costs in America by manufacturing generic versions of patented drugs sold for common diseases.
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Make-A-Wish Foundation is famous for giving kids moments they’ll never forget, even if their time is limited to remember them.
But a sneaky trick, played with the help of a cooperative airline pilot and passengers gave a child named Jacob an experience in every way equal to meeting Michael Jordan or John Cena.
A boy named Jacob was flying with his mother when the pilot suddenly chimed in on the intercom saying he was proud of the young man.
“Jacob, just before takeoff, a representative from Make-A-Wish made contact with the airline. We were informed that you no longer meet the requirements to be a Make-A-Wish candidate,” he said.
Posted on TikTok by a story feed called @bestindid, the pilot adds that Jacob would still have his wish of going to Disney (sic), but “according to your most recent exam, you have many more years to take all the trips you could ever dream of.”
At that point the pilot invites the “big man” to stand up and look behind him, where three passengers in the row behind them were holding up colored signs that read “You Are Cancer Free!”
Applause erupted as Jacob and his mother embraced in the aisle, while commenters on the video shared similar experiences, or simply said how hard they were crying.
Collyweston Historical and Preservation Society – CHAPS
Collyweston Historical and Preservation Society – CHAPS
In a true underdog story, a group of “amateurs” used historical material to locate the buried remains of Collyweston Palace, owned by the grandmother of Henry VIII, Margaret Beaufort.
In the English shire of Northampton, a local historical society had been searching for the palace for 5 years, and located it with the help of ground-penetrating radar.
“We’re just a bunch of amateurs really, with no money, no plans, just a lot of enthusiasm and against all the odds we have unearthed this,” Chris Close, a member of the Collyweston Historical and Preservation Society, or “CHAPS” for short.
Collyweston Manor was listed as a historical site by Historic England back in 1967, but the only evidence anything was there were fish ponds and a barn. The first inkling the CHAPS volunteers had that they discovered something important was the moment their radar scans indicated buried walls and foundations of the palace.
Falling into disrepair by 1650, it was bought by the Dutch Tryon family who built another house on the site. The following excavations done by CHAPS needed the cooperation of several landowners.
CHAPS had raised £14,000 ($17,500) in local grant money for the project, and fortunately their efforts not only succeeded in locating and identifying the foundations and stone moldings of the buildings, but they attracted the attention of better-funded professionals who could help out.
Currently in the second stage of excavations, more radar scans will be employed to ascertain what each building might have been used for while diggers carefully ensure any artifacts present are preserved for a local museum exhibit at Lady Margaret’s Chapel in Collyweston.
“We will also be able to obtain other useful information that will enable us to work out the architectural style along with other important dating evidence,” CHAPS said. “As far as we can tell, the last royal to stay at Collyweston was Elizabeth I who is recorded as holding court here on 3 August 1566.”
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Quote of the Day: “The pine stays green in winter—wisdom in hardship.” – Norman Douglas
Photo by: Robert Thiemann
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A 49-year-old recently had to live with friends so she could afford to continue her studies when her rent rose.
But she’s just won the keys to a stunning Chelsea townhouse worth a whopping 5 million in West London.
She’s the latest winner of a charity draw organized by Omaze—after buying a ticket for the lottery that raised 2,600,000 in the UK for the NHS (National Health Service).
Oceanne Belle’ won the 4-story home with a $10 ticket. The beautiful townhouse in the sought-after area of Kensington and Chelsea comes mortgage free, with all the tax and legal fees covered.
She studies full-time at the University of Sunderland in London, and will finish her Bachelor of Science degree in Health and Social Care in January—and she’s free to either live in the house, rent it out, or sell it and become a cash multi-millionaire.
When Omaze first tried to contact Oceanne to tell her she’d scooped the prize, she blocked the number because she didn’t recognize it.
She now says winning the house is the “best Christmas present ever”.
“It was a Friday night and I’d been writing a dissertation all day and feeling a bit down in the dumps, as it’s so stressful. I got a few calls from a number I didn’t know so I blocked it, twice!”
Then the Omaze prize team showed up at her address.
“I was greeted by the Omaze team singing funny Christmas carols. Then the next thing I knew I’d won a house and my life had changed forever.”
SWNS / Omaze
“I never win anything and had only ever entered Omaze draws twice before. I guess it’s a case of, third time lucky!
“When they told me I’d won the grand prize I was shaking,” said Oceanne, who’s studying to become a pediatric nurse. “It’s so crazy that last week I was technically ‘sofa surfing’ at a friend’s flat. It’s just unbelievable.
“I can now invite all my family over. I absolutely love cooking and can’t wait to use the kitchen – it’s an amazing feeling.
She still wants to fulfill her dream of becoming a nurse—and this win will help her to achieve that.
“I’m thrilled this Omaze draw has raised so much money for NHS Charities,” she added. “I’ve recently had a long stay in hospital, so I know firsthand how incredible the work the NHS does is. I owe my life to the NHS and wouldn’t be here today without them.”
The Chief Executive at NHS Charities Together, said, “This incredible amount of money will help us provide life-saving equipment, volunteers, and training that will save lives.”
One Brit who spent his life helping the disabled won a 2.5 million country home in a previous drawing. And another home is ready to win (in Somerset) for UK residents only at their website—omaze.co.uk.
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Detroit, Michigan celebrated a major milestone in the future of vehicle electrification, as crews finished installing the nation’s first wireless-charging public roadway last month.
Using technology from Electreon, 14th Street is now equipped with inductive-charging coils that will charge electric vehicles (EVs) equipped with receivers as they drive on the road.
The road will be used to test and perfect the Israeli company’s wireless-charging technology in a real-world environment to perfect it ahead of making it available to the public in the next few years.
“We’re excited to spearhead the development and deployment of America’s first wireless charging road,” said Dr. Stefan Tongur, Electreon vice president of business development. “This milestone stands as a testament to our collaborative efforts with the State of Michigan and the Department of Transportation (MDOT).”
The charging road, which runs between Marantette and Dalzelle streets, paves the way for addressing range limitations of EVs,
The move toward electrification was touted by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who announced the pilot initiative in September 2021 to develop the nation’s first wireless charging infrastructure on a public road, after MDOT and Electreon entered a five-year commitment to develop the electric road system (ERS).
Electreon’s wireless charging technology is based on inductive coupling between copper coils installed below the road surface and receivers installed on the underside of electric vehicles. The road only transfers its electricity using a magnetic field when a vehicle with a receiver nears the in-road charging segments.
These charging segments can transfer wireless electricity directly to the car battery when the vehicle is parked (static charging) or is driving (dynamic charging). The electric road is safe for drivers, pedestrians and wildlife. Each coil in the road is activated only when a vehicle with an approved receiver passes over the coil. This ensures that energy transfer is controlled and provided only to vehicles that require it.
MDOT and Electreon agreed to install a combined mile of inductive-charging roadway in Detroit’s historic Corktown neighborhood. The charging road runs alongside the Newlab at Michigan Central Building, home to more than 60 tech and mobility startups, allowing for the further testing and advancement of this next-generation technology.
In 2024, MDOT will begin seeking bids to rebuild part of US-12 (Michigan Avenue), which will see additional inductive charging installed. Electreon has also installed two static inductive charging stations in front of Michigan Central Station, which will be able to charge Electreon-equipped vehicles while they are parked.
Extensive testing of the inductive charging technology will continue in early 2024. Using a Ford E-Transit electric commercial van provided by Ford Motor Co. and equipped with the Electreon receiver, staff will test the efficiency and operations of the vehicle and study potential long-term public transportation opportunities.
“Making it easier for EV users to find a reliable charging source without disrupting their commute supports both fleet operations and passenger travel,” said MDOT Director Bradley C. Wieferich.
Electreon operates 18 projects across eight countries, including powering buses in Israel and electrifying roads in France, China, Norway, and Sweden. And, Electreon’s wireless in-road charging technology was named one of the world’s top 100 inventions for 2021 by Time Magazine.
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A golf fan has created a stunning portrait of Tiger Woods made out of 25,000 new and broken golf tees.
Aaron Norris finished the artwork last month and has already sold it for an undisclosed amount.
The 43-year-old artist says he got the idea after spotting broken tees strewn across his local course. He started picking them up, so they could become part of a future pallet.
The 6-foot x 6-foot wall art depicts one of the most famous faces in all of sports reading a putt.
“This was an idea I had been thinking about for a long time,” admits the resident of Missouri.
“Every time I played golf I would see all these broken golf tees laying on every tee box. I would always say ‘I could make something out of those’.
Missouri artist Aaron Norris created a stunning mural of Tiger Woods – SWNS
“Over the summer and fall, I started picking them up and saving them. I also had all of my neighbors who played golf saving them for me too.”
Eventually, he decided that he would create a portrait of Tiger Woods, who is tied for most lifetime PGA Tour wins.
Roughly half of the 25,000 golf tees used were collected; he spent $400 buying the other tees.
Previous works by the artist includes a Muhammad Ali oil canvas, an Elon Musk mosaic bead portrait, and a painting of the Kelce brothers, two NFL football stars.
“I’m from the Kansas City area, and when the Royals won the World Series in 2015, I began to get a lot of sports commissions.
“Then a few years later, the Chiefs started winning Super Bowls and the commission work for sports art really started to flood in.
SWNS
But he’s never utilized actual sports equipment to create his artwork before this fascinating work.
Researchers found that twice-daily current stimulation sessions of around 20 minutes improved the memory and overall cognitive performance of elderly people living with Alzheimer’s disease.
The innovative technology, known as transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), could also be used as a treatment to improve brain plasticity in Alzheimer’s sufferers through the formation of new neural networks, collections of neurons that fire together.
The tDCS technology is delivered via a device with two electrodes placed over specific areas of a person’s head, which transmits a constant, low-intensity electrical current.
It’s already beginning to be used across many areas of medicine, including for the treatment of depression, and a similar method was even able to zap paralyzed limbs into motion again.
The researchers from China recruited 140 patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s and randomly allocated whether they would receive the two daily sessions of the active low-intensity current, or a sham version of the tDCS in a control or placebo group.
Each participant received their respective treatment five days a week, over a maximum period of six weeks.
All participants were over the age of 65 and had had the disease for more than six months, with all also having scored below 26 on the Mini-Mental State Exam (MMSE), in which a score of less than 24 is seen as abnormal and indicative of cognitive impairment.
The currents were applied to the prefrontal cortex—the region of the brain involved in higher-order activities such as planning, decision-making, working memory, moderating social behaviors, and controlling aspects of speech and language.
The researchers then used a different scale called the Alzheimer’s Disease Assessment Scale-Cognitive Test, which focuses on language and memory, to evaluate cognitive performance at the start of the trial, after two weeks, and again after six weeks.
The results of the study showed that after two weeks, tDCS significantly improved the cognitive function of those who received the treatment, particularly their word recall, recall of test instructions, and word recognition.
No such improvements were noticed in the group receiving the sham treatment.
The results also showed that although cortical plasticity is impaired in those with Alzheimer’s, this improved in patients after six weeks of tDCS.
“Taken together, tDCS is a promising method for improving cognitive function with sufficient treatment,” First author Liu Xingxing, from the Zhejiang University in China.
“tDCS can significantly improve the working memory of older patients, and the stimulation changes the resting-state functional connectivity of the frontoparietal brain region,” the authors wrote.
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Quote of the Day: “Water is the driving force of all nature.” – Leonardo da Vinci
Photo by: Aaron Burden
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Funeral-goers dance in front of wicker casket at service for 65-year-old Irish singer-songwriter Shane MacGowan.
Funeral-goers dance in front of wicker casket at service for 65-year-old Irish singer-songwriter Shane MacGowan.
Thousands of mourners lined the streets of Dublin yesterday to bid farewell to Irish hero Shane MacGowan, the punk rocker who elevated traditional Celtic music to new heights as co-founder of the band The Pogues.
After his death at age 65 from months of complications and pneumonia, his horse-drawn carriage cortege wound through two miles of the city’s streets where musicians gathered and fans joined them in singing songs like Dirty Old Town and A Pair of Brown Eyes as the procession passed by.
As the casket rolled through his hometown of Nenagh draped in the Irish flag, his 1988 hit, If I Should Fall From Grace With God, was pounding from speakers, while the crowd clapped and cheered him on his way.
“Let me go boys, let me go boys… Let me go down in the mud where the rivers all run dry.”
But it was the Irish funeral service, in a nearby church in County Tipperary, that truly demonstrated how to say goodbye to a lively character such as Shane: make it a celebration.
One highlight for the crowd gathered at the public church service was when musicians got up and sang Shane’s unforgettable Christmas song, Fairytale of New York.
Glen Hansard from the band The Frames got a standing ovation on lead vocal and guitar, while John Sheahan from The Dubliners played his tin whistle. The joyful emotions rose to such a height that friends and family escaped the rows of benches to dance in the aisles.
MacGowan singing with The Pogues at a Washington DC St. Patrick’s Day concert in 2011 – by Geri Weis-Corbley
Shane’s friend Johnny Depp, who read a prayer, called the exceptional songwriter “the maestro”, and Bono shared a message via video. Nick Cave also performed MacGowan’s moving ballad A Rainy Night in Sohoat the piano.
You can watch the whole funeral below, but we’ve started the video on Fairytale of New York…
People on the streets of Dublin also rang out spontaneously with the lyrics of the poignant Christmas tale—living proof that the hard-living MacGowan will never be forgotten—especially in December…
After Shane MacGowan’s cortège passes by, hundreds of people remain on Westland Row/Lincoln Place in Dublin for an impromptu rendition of Fairytale of New York. pic.twitter.com/sKq0GoSP5T
A fossil thought for years to be a plant turns out to be a baby turtle—and surprised researchers have nicknamed it “Turtwig” after a Pokemon character that is half-turtle, half-plant.
From the 1950s to the 1970s, a priest named Padre Gustavo Huertas collected rocks and fossils near a town called Villa de Levya in Colombia.
Two of the specimens he found were small, round rocks patterned with lines that looked like leaves. He classified them as a type of fossilized plant.
But a new study, published in the journal Palaeontologia Electronica, researchers re-examined the “plant” fossils and found that they weren’t plants at all: they were the remains of baby turtles.
“It was truly surprising,” said Héctor Palma-Castro, a paleobotany student at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia.
The plants in question had been described by the priest in 2003 as Sphenophyllum colombianum. The fossils come from Early Cretaceous rocks dating back to between 113 and 132 million years ago, during the dinosaur days.
Fossils of Sphenophyllum colombianum would have been rare at that time, as the other known members of the genus Sphenophyllum died out more than 100 million years prior.
The plants’ age and locality piqued the interest of Colombian-born Dr. Fabiany Herrera, the assistant curator of fossil plants at the Field Museum in the United States, and his student, Mr. Palma-Castro.
Dr. Herrera recalled, “We went to the fossil collection at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Bogotá and started looking at the plants, and as soon as we photographed them, we thought, ‘this is weird.’”
At first glance, at two inches in diameter, the fossils looked like rounded nodules containing the preserved leaves of the plant Sphenophyllum. But the pair noticed key features that weren’t quite right.
Drawing of the rib and back bones, superimposed onto the fossil – SWNS
“Deciphering the shape and margin of the leaf proved challenging,” said Palma-Castro.
“When you look at it in detail, the lines seen on the fossils don’t look like the veins of a plant, explained Dr. Herrera. “I was positive that it was most likely bone.”
Herrera reached out to an old colleague, Edwin-Alberto Cadena, a paleontologist who focuses on turtles and other vertebrates at the Universidad del Rosario in Bogotá. He confirmed the photos definitely looked like the bony upper shell of a turtle (carapace).
When he saw the scale of the photos, Prof. Cadena said, ‘Well, this is remarkable, because this is not only a turtle, but it’s also a hatchling specimen, it’s very, very small.”
Cadena and his student, Diego Cómbita-Romero, further examined the specimens, comparing them with the shells of both fossil and modern turtles.
“When we saw the specimen for the first time I was astonished, because the fossil was missing the typical marks on the outside of a turtle’s shell,” said Cómbita-Romero. “It was a little bit concave, like a bowl.
“At that moment we realized that the visible part of the fossil was the other side of the carapace, we were looking at the part of the shell that is inside the turtle.”
Details in the turtle’s bones helped the researchers estimate how old it was at death. The juvenile likely died when it was less than one year old.
“This is actually really rare to find hatchlings of fossil turtles in general,” said Cadena. “When the turtles are very young, the bones in their shells are very thin, so they can be easily destroyed.”
The researchers say that the rarity of fossilized baby turtles makes their discovery an important one. “Discoveries like these are truly special.”
The features that Padre Huertas thought were leaves and stems are actually the modified rib bones and vertebrae that make up the shell.
They nicknamed the specimen ‘Turtwig,’ after a Pokémon character that’s half-turtle, half-plant.
“In the Pokémon universe, you encounter the concept of combining two or more elements, such as animals, machines, and plants,” said Palma-Castro. “In this case, Turtwig—the baby turtle with a leaf attached to its head.”
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Willy Wonka was immortalized in a life-sized chocolate sculpture by Jen Lindsey-Clark in London's Trafalgar Square – SWNS
Chocolate Sculptor Jen Lindsey-Clark unveils Willy Wonka statue in Trafalgar Square – SWNS
Artists spent 200 hours over two weeks carving a life-sized Willy Wonka using what else but chocolate.
The 6-ft 2-inch sculpture, inspired by the eponymous character in the new movie Wonka, was unveiled this week in London’s Trafalgar Square.
Sculpted into the character’s iconic pose, featuring a hat-tip and cane, the creation was moulded and hand crafted from more than 100 liters of melted chocolate by chocolate sculptor Jen Lindsey-Clark and a small team.
Only the head uses a non-cocoa center.
“As a chocolate sculptor, this was the absolute dream commission,” said Jen, who recently created a bust of King Charles ahead of the coronation.
“Just about everyone in the world of confectionary has been inspired by the magic of Willy Wonka and Dahl’s inventive storytelling one way or another.”
Willy Wonka was immortalized in a life-sized chocolate sculpture by Jen Lindsey-Clark in London’s Trafalgar Square – SWNS
“I grew up on the books and watched the original Wilder Wonka film religiously every Easter and Christmas as a child, so to have had the chance to bring such an enduring character to life in chocolate has been such a labor of love.”
Chocolate Sculptor Jen Lindsey-Clark applies final touches to sweet sculpture inspired by Timothée Chalamet’s Willy Wonka – SWNS
The new film, which features Timothée Chalamet as Wonka and Hugh Grant as the Oompa Loompa, was released on Friday by Warner Bros, and is the latest in a respectable line of films based on Roald Dahl’s literary classic Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
It follows the life of a younger Willy Wonka, chock-full of ideas and determined to change the world. It depicts the path he took to become the iconic candy maker which several generations have come to know and love.
The sculpture has since been moved so pedestrians wouldn’t begin nibbling on the velvety masterpiece.
WATCH a video about making the sculpture…
And check out the new Wonka film trailer below..
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